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J STOW l\ SMHLET. By A. CONAN DOYLE. PART ONE. \Hcinrf a reprint from the reminiscences of John 11. Watson, M. I)., late of the army medical department.] CHAPTER I. In the year 1878 I took my degree of doctor of medicine of the University of London and proceeded to Netley to go ■ through the course prescribed for sur- . geons in the army. Slaving completed i my studies tin re, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and be fore I could join it the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes and was al ready deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Kandahar in safety, where I found my regiment and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honors and pro motion to many, but for me it had noth ing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshiree, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on tho shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed tho subclavian artery. I should have fallen into tho hands of the mur derous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw mo across a pack horse and succeeded in bringing mo safe ly to the British lines. Worn with pain and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had under gone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hos pital at Peshawur. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to bo able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little on tho veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and be came convalescent I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board deter mined that not a day should be lost in fending me back to England. I was dis patched accordingly in the troopship Orontos and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irre trievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it. I had neither kith nor kin in Eng land, and was therefore as free as air— or as free as an income of Ils. fid. a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the entire empire are irresistibly drained. There I staid for some time at a private hotel in tho titrand, leading a comfortless, mean ingless existence and spending such money as I had considerably more free ly than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a com plete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the ho tel and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domi cile. On the very day that I had come to this conclusion I was standing at the Criterion bar when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round 1 recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under mo at Bart’s. The sight of a friendly face in the great wil derness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom. “Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked, in undis guised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. “You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut. ” I gave him a short sketch of my ad ventures and had hardly concluded it by tho time that we reached our desti nation. "Poor devil!” he said commiserat ingly after he had listened to my mis fortunes. “What are you up to now?” “Looking for lodgings,” I answered, “trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price. ’ ’ “That's a strange thing, ” remarked my companion. "You are the second man today that has used that expression to me,” “And who was the first?” I asked. “A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morn ing because he could not get some one to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found and which were too much for his purse. ” “By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants some one to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone. ’ ’ Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass. “You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet, ” he said. “Perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion. ” “Why, what is there against him?” “Oh, 1 didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know, he is a de cent fellow enough.” “A medical student, I suppose?” I said. “Na I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first class chemist, but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amxssed a lot of out of tho way knowledge which would astonish his professors.” “Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked. “No. He is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be commu nicative enough when the fancy seizes him. ” “I should like to meet him,” I caid. “If lam to lodge with any one, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet hab its. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enougli of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?” “He is sure to beat the laboratory. He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.” “Certainly, ” I answered, and the con versation drifted away into other chan nels. As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow lodger. “You mustn’t blame mo if you don’t get on with him,” he said. “I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. You proposed this arrange ment, so yon must not hold me respon sible. ’ ’ “If wo don’t get on, it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It seems to me, Stamford,” I added, look ing hard at my companion, “that you have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow’s temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy mouthed about it. ” “It is not easy to express tho inex pressible,” ho answered, with a laugh. “Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes. It approaches to cold blooded ness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable al kaloid, not out of malevolence, you un derstand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself with the same readiness. Ho appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowl edge. ” “Very right too. ” “Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarro shape. ” “Beating the subjects!” “Yes, to verify how far bruises may bo produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes. ” “And yot you say ho is not a medical student?” “No. Heaven knows what tho objects of his studies are! But here wo are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was fa miliar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended tho bleak stone staircase and made our w’ay dowji tho long corridor with its vista of white washed wall and dun colored doors. Near the farther end a low archod pas sage branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory. This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts, test tubes and lit tle Bunsen lamps, with their blue flick ering flames. There was only one stu dent in tho room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found.it! I’ve found it!” ho shouted to my com panion, running toward us with a test tube in his hand. “I have found a re agent which is precipitated by hemoglo bin, and by nothing else. ” Had he dis covered a gold mine greater delight could not have shone upon his features. “Dr. Watson—Mr. Sherlock Holmes, ” said Stamford, introducing us. “How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “ Y’ou have been in Afghanistan, | I perceive. ” “How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment. I “Never mind,” said he, chuckling to • himself. “The question now is about hemoglobin. No doubt you see tho sig nificance of this discovery of mine?” “It is interesting, chemically, no J doubt, ” I answered, “but practically”— i “Why, man, it is the most practical I medico-legal discovery for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test j for blood stains? Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat sleeve in his ■ eagerness and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, dig ‘ ging a long bodkin into his finger and i drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a liter of wa ter. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of true wa ter. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an in stant the contents assumed a dull ma hogany color, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. “Ha, ha!” he cried, clapping his hands and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?” “It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked “Beautiful, beautiful! The old guaia cum test was very clumsy and nneer tain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is value less if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would I long ago have paid tho penalty of their crimes. ” “Indeed!” I murmured. “Criminal cases are continually hing ing upon that one point. A man is sus pected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His linen or clothes are examined and brownish stains discovered upon them Are they blood stains or mud stains or rust stains or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sher lock Holmes test, and there will no lon ger be any difficulty. ” His eyes fairly glittered as ho spoke, and ho put his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination. “Y’ou are to bo congratulated,” I re marked, considerably surprised at his enthusiasm. “There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. Ho would cer tainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it would have been deci sive. ’ ’ “You seem to be a walking calendar of crime, ” said Stamford, with a laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it The Police News of tho Past. ” “Very interesting reading it might be made, too, ” remarked Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger. “I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me, with a smile, “for I dabble with poi sons a good deal. ” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster and discolored with strong acids. “We came hero on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a three legged stool and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. ‘ ‘My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were complaining that you could get no ono to go halves with you I thought that I had better bring you together.” Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. “I have my eye on a suit in Baker street,” ho said, “which would suit us I down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?” “I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered. “That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?” “By no means. ” “Let me see—what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when Ido that. Just let mo alone, and I’ll soon bo all right. What have you to confess, now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together. ” I laughed at this cross examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said, “andobject to rows, because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present. ” “Do you include violin playing in your category of rows?” he asked anx iously. “It depends on the player, ” I answer ed. “A well played violin is a treat for the gods. A badly played one”— “Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may con sider the thing as settled—that is, if the rooms are agreeable to you. ” “When shall we see them?” “Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we’ll go together and settle every thing, ” he answered. “All right—noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand. We left him working among his chemicals and walked together toward my hotel. “By the way, ” I asked suddenly, stop ping and turning upon Stamford, “how the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?” My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little peculiar ity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out. ” “Oh! A mystery, is it?” I cried, rub bing my hands. “This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper study of man kind is man, ’ you know. ” “You must study him, then,” Stam ford said as he bade me goodby. “You’ll find him a knotty problem, though I’ll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Goodby.” “Goodby,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acquaintance. CHAPTER 11. We met next day as he had arranged and inspected the rooms at 221 b Baker ‘ street, of which be had spoken at our meeting. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large, airy sitting room, cheerfully furnished ■ and illuminated by two broad windows, i So desirable in every way were the I apartments, and so moderate did the ' terms seem when divided between us I that the bargain was concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession. That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes j followed me with several boxes and port manteaus. For a day or two we were j busily employed in unpacking and lay- ; ing out our property to the best advan tage. That done, we gradually began to i settle down and to accommodate our- , • selves to our new surroundings. Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ' ways, and his habits were regular. It i was rare for him to be up after 10 at ' night, and he had invariably breakfast ed and gone out K: el rose in the i morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting rooms, and occasional ly in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of tho city. Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him, but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting room, hardly ut tering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed -uch a creamy, vacant ex pression in ki> eyes that I might have i suspected him of being addicted to the ' use of some narcotic bad not tho tem peranco and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion. As the weeks went by my interest in him and my curiosity as to bis aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height ho was rather over 6 feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and pierc ing, save during those intervals of tor por to which I have alluded, and his thin, hawklike nose gave his whole ex pression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark tho man of de termination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chem icals, yet he was possessed of extraordi nary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosoph ical instruments. i The reader may set mo down as a I hopeless busybody when I confess how much this man stimulated my curiosity and how often I endeavored to break through tho reticence which he showed lon all that concerned himself. Before i pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered how objectless was my life , and how little there was to engage my attention. I.ly health forbade mo from i venturing out unless tho weather was exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and break tho monotony of my daily exist ence. Under these circumstances I eager ly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion and spent much of my time in endeavoring to unravel it. Ho was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question, con firmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in science or I any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordi narily ample and minute that his obser vations have fairly astounded me. Sure ly no man would work so hard to attain such precise information unless ho had some definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the I exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so. His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Os contemporary litera ture, philosophy and polities he appear ed to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found inci dentally that ho was ignorant of the Copernican theory and of the composi tion of the solar system. That any civi lized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished, ” he said, smiling at my expression of sur prise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. ” “To forget it!” “You see, ” ho explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowl edge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands up on it. Now’, the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. ” “But the solar system!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he in terrupted impatiently. “You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon, it would not make a penny worth of difference to me or to my work. ” I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavored to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was ex ceptionally well informed. I even took ; a pencil and jotted them down. T could | not help smiling at the document when ; I had completed it. It ran in this way: SHERLOCK HOLMES—HIS LIMITS. 1. Know ledge of Literature.—Nil. 2. Knowledge of Philosophy.—Nil. 3. Knowledge of Astronomy.—Nil. 4. Knowledge of Politics.—Feeble. 5. Knowledge of Botany. Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium and poi sons generally. Knows nothing- of prac tical gardening. 6. Knowledge of Geology.—Practi cal, but limited. Tells at a glance-dis- 1 ferent soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his tron* I sers, and told nie by their color and com sistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Knowledge of Chemistry.—Pro found. 8. Knowledge of Anatomy.—Accu rate, but unsystematic. 9. Knowledge of Sensational Litera ture. —Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays tho violin well. 11. Is an expert single stick player, boxer and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law. When I had got so far in my list, I threw it into the fire in despair. “If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all these accomplish ments and discovering a calling which needs them all,” I said to myself, “I may as well give up tho attempt at once.” I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon tho violin. These were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments. That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because at my request he has play ed me some of Mendelssohn’s “Lieder” and other favorites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any music or at tempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his armchair of an evening, ho would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle, which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sono rous and melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they reflected the thoughts which pos sessed him, but whether the music aided those thoughts or whether the playing was simply tho result of a whim or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against these ex asperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favorite airs as a slight compensation for the trial upon my patience. During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently, however, I found that he had many acquaintam es and those in the most different classes of society. There was one little, sallow, rat faced, dark eyed fellow who was in troduced to me as Mr. Lostrade, and who came three or four times in a sin gle week. One morning a young girl called, fashionably dressed, and staid for half an hour or more. The same aft ernoon brought a gray headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew peddler, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely followed by a slipshod elderly woman. On another occasion an old white haired gentleman had an in terview with my companion, and on an other a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sher lock Holmes used to beg for the use of tho sitting room, and I would retire to my bedroom. He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I have to use this room as a place of business,” he said, “and these people are my clients. ” Again I had an oppor tunity of asking him a point blank ques tion, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to the subject of his own accord. It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I rose somewhat earlier than usual and found that Sherlock Holmes had not yet finished his breakfast. The landlady hod become so accustomed to my late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table and attemped to while away the time with it, while my com panion munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it. Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life, ” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic ex amination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mix ture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be farfetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expres sion, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye to fathom a man’s inmost, thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one train ed to observation and analysis. His con clusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uniniti ated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necro mancer. “From a drop of water, ” said the writer, “a logician could infer the pos sibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara with out having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the science of deduction and analysis is one which can only be ac quired by long and patient study, nor is : life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and menial aspects of the matter which pre sent the greatest difficulties let the in quirer begin by mastering more elemen tary problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow mortal, learn at a glance to dis tinguish the history of the man and the trade or profession to which he belongs. ■ Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties cf observation and teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man’s finger nails, by his boot, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs—by each of these things a man’s calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. ” “What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the table. “I never read such rubbish ii. my life.” “What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes. “Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat down to my’breakfast. “I see that you have read it, since you have marked it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me, though. It is evidently the theory of some armchair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clap ped down in a third class carriage on tho Underground and asked to give the trades of all his fellow travelers. I would lay a thousand to one against him. ” “You would lose your money, ” Sher lock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for the article, I wrote it myself.” “You!” “Yes, I have a turn both for observa tion and for deduction. 'The theories which I have expressed Ibero, and which appear to you to bo so chimerical, are really extremely practical, so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese. ’ ’ “And how?” I asked involuntarily. “Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the onlyono in the world. I am a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Hero in Lon don we have lots of government detect ives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all tho evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about mis deeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first. Lostrade is a well known detect ive. He got himself into a fog recently over a forgery case, and that was what brought him here.” “And these other people?” “They are mostly sent out by private inquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee. ” “But do you mean to say, ” I said, “that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?” “Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see, I have a lot of special knowledge which I apply to the problem and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Those rules of de duction laid down in that article which aroused your scorn are invaluable to mo in practical work. Observation with mo is second nature. You appeared ts bo surprised when I told yojj; on our first that -kad 'eome from Af r ' -- ‘ told, no Houbt. ” “b.4Rmiug of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan. Urom long habit the train of thought ran so swift ly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran: ‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with tho air of a military man, clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint cf his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doc tor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan. ’ The whole train of thought did not oc cupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished. ” “It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist out side of stories. ’ ’ Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are com plimenting me in comparing me to Du pin, ”he observed. “New, in my opin ion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his ■ friends’ thoughts with an apropos re : mark after a quarter of an hour’s silence i is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt, but he was by no means such a phenome non as Poe appeared to imagine.” “Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Docs Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?” Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler, ” he said in an angry voice. “He had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in 24 hours. Lecoq took six ■ mouths or so. It might be made a text book for detectives to teach them what to avoid. ” I I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window and stood looking out into the busy street. “This fellow n.ay be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.” “There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has i.vcr lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or at most some bungling villainy, with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.”